Back from the hills!

In less than 48 hours our family, including Poppa and Grandma Bea, along with the Weeda family, the Weeda grandparents and Steven P have travelled to the mountains, shopped in outlet stores (yes, in the mountains!!! Weird, isn't it?), walked amongst a gorgeous villa garden, slept in that same villa, and visited a wild animal park. Whew! It was a fun, adventurous whirlwind trip and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Now our family is hunkering down to a family video, very aware that the time that Grandma and Poppa have with the kids and Tris is ticking by very quickly. The three of us head to Bali this Saturday and then, once mom and dad return, they repack quickly and head back to Canada the next day.

Although this time is passing so quickly, there are so many memories that mom and dad will pack home with them, in both memory form and in digital form. On this 2 day trip alone between us we took about 600 photos. We'd like to share a few of them with you. Once we hit Puncak we stopped at a local KFC where the chicken is almost the same as what you are used to, just a little SPICIER! Our first tourist stop was the tea plantation that I wrote about in early December. The grandparents and Steven loved the views, but we only stayed a short time. We had shopping ahead to do (and it started sprinkling). We did get a few good shots at the plantation and at a rest stop just above it. I was thrilled to use the new lense that Tris and the kids bought me for Christmas. With it I was able to get a close up of workers that were quite far away.

We then hit the outlet stores, and although it took us a while to get warmed up, most of us found a few good items to take home with us. Abby was thrilled because she hit the jackpot; she said it's the first time she's ever bought so many things at once. I think my daughter has discovered a buried love of clothes shopping...uh oh!

Not far from the outlets stores was our villa, very generously provided for us by local Lippo family whom I've never even met. There are few words that can describe the beauty of the gardens around the house, and I don't think mine would do it justice, so I've included a few photos. The inside of the house was lovely as well. When we arrived we were greeted by Ibu Siti, a very elderly woman who stays in the villa. She was very accommodating to the 14 of us, plus the Weeda's driver. She didn't speak any english, and the driver spoke very little as well, so I was able to use my little bit of Bahasa Indonesia again to try and communicate the needs of the Bule crowd to Ibu Siti. In this photo, Ibu Siti isn't wearing anything on her head, it is just the way the vine in the background was situated behind her.

We spent the night watching movies, playing games and reading. The next morning I went for a walk in the garden with Neil Weeda, who showed me all of the spiders and webs that he'd found the night before. I've never seen such big spiders in all my life! The way that the garden paths wound around at different levels, I was able to shoot some interesting shots of the spider and some willing and rather happy looking victims.

For the record, I was about 1 metre from the spider and so were the others on the other side of the web.

Around 9 am we headed for Taman Safari, where you sit in your car and watch wild animals wander outside of your car. Hopefully you see them up close as your windows remain shut. However, reality and rules don't always mix. For the first part of the ride you are aren't told by any signs to keep your windows shut, and on the way to the site are tons of vendors selling carrots and bananas, so what is a family of bules to do? We were able to stick carrots and bananas out the window to start, and then the animals began to discover some of the food on our laps. There were a lot of friendly animals on this safari!!

After we drove through that section we headed to a "do not open your window or else" section. Like that stopped anybody! I think one of my favourite shots is of the male lion. He was only about 8 metres away from our vehicle. There were so many shots but sometimes the photos one takes aren't always enjoyed as much by a distant onlooker...I'll share only the favourites.

This tiger was so close that if we opened our door to step out we would have stepped on his beautiful head!

After the safari we returned to the main parking, bought lunch at a Rainforest Restaurant (hmmm, sounds like a place I've been before...) and we even got to eat western food. Just outside of the restaurant were about 5 elephants, and they were extremely tame. We were able to touch them, feed them and take a bunch of touristy photos.

Grandma Bea is brave...this elephant had bad breathe!!!

The last leg of our safari was through a bird aviary and then to an area where you can pay to hold some baby animals. Of course, how can you say no to holding a baby lion or orangutan? We had to admit afterwards, we think maybe the animals had been slightly drugged, and one larger leopard baby in particular was extremely grumpy. When we saw how the handler treated him it is no wonder the cat was in a foul mood. We weren't very pleased.

in this photo Matthew is discovering that baby orangutans love to have their bellies tickled!Tris came out of his experience with a few scratches, but I think he feels it was worth it. The tiger cub he held was trying to chew the keys out of Tris' pockets for a long time; I think he's giving the little guy a talking-to right here.

Once we had our fill of holding these lovelies, our family decided to head home. While the Weedas stayed on, we drove back with only one stop at a fruit stand and then homewards. One of the things that I love most is bartering here. Each time I do I learn something new...lately it's been to watch what the vendor is selling me. This time I caught him switching pineapples on me...wanted to give me one that was hard and green, insisted it was the one I originally chose, and then only gave in when I walked away. When mom and I were buying rings on Lombok the same thing happened, except that vendor actually removed one of the rings from mom's stash, put it back into the show case and feigned ignorance when I called him on it. Gotta be on the ball!

Again, this is a rather long posting, but with mom and dad here there's so much more going on in our home and lives. Once they're gone I can pretty much guarantee the postings will be a little less busy and colourful...for a while.

There are two photos that we took specifically. One is for Aunt Sam, and it's of her favourite animal, the hippo.

The other is for Dale. I bought a newspaper off of a boy magazine seller just like I was told..I even took a photo. It's not in Jakarta, but I'm not sure that that was one of the stipulations. Although it is a very well-read paper (what do you expect when you have a house full of readers?) I will still send it home as further proof of purchase.

Thanks for reading!